2010, the Year of IMS?

So you’re trying to upgrade your service provider network, and you go to your local distributor and ask for an IMS. It seems funny, but the problem is that people’s natural instinct is to equate technology with physical objects. But, IMS is not a PBX, or a switch, or a session borer controller, or any other network component; nor is it an application you install on a server to add to your capabilities.

 

IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) is really more of a framework — an idea, a plan, a design — developed to help service providers effectively transition their networks and services into an all-IP environment and most effectively leverage that technology to provide new services and applications.

 

In its simplest terms, IMS is really about a creating a standardized set of “rules” for networks and associated components — like the use of SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) — to ensure interoperability between vendors, allowing for easy integration into networks, so that development and testing costs are decreased and time to market is significantly increased. 

 

Driving that interoperability is what the IMS/NGN Forum (formerly IMS Forum) has looked to achieve with its IMS PlugFests. It began its series of interoperability events two years ago, and this week held the 6^th, hosted from the UNH-IOL in Durham, New Hampshire.

 

It’s not that service providers and the vendors that support that community could not undertake interoperability testing on their own, but it would be, to say the least, a challenge. Not only would it require multiple testing arrangements with various other parties, but the costs of undertaking such procedures on a one-on-one basis would extend the ultimate outcome indefinitely.

 

On the other hand, by providing an outlet for several vendors to come together at a facility designed for such a purpose, the IMS/NGN Forum dramatically cuts both cost and time.

 

In fact, as Manuel Vexler, Chair of the IMS Technical Working Groups, suggested on a conference call to discuss PlugFest 6, many of the vendors that have participated in the PlugFests would otherwise not have communicated with one another. But, through the support and guidance of the Forum, they have an opportunity to come together to help drive the industry to new heights.

 

PlugFest 6, explained Vexler, actually went beyond the previous five events, which focused heavily on vendor interoperability, to an inter-provider environment, thanks to two separate simulated operator networks for the first time, designed to prove interoperability between operators with hopes of driving roaming and nomadic services.

 

 

As Dan Bantukul, Director of Product Management at Tekelec, which has participated in all six PlugFests, noted, “When they were first started, PlugFests were about interface testing, but the program has now evolved to incorporate system level testing.”

 

The benefit of a PlugFest-like environment, in addition to the cost and time savings, is that participants have a real opportunity to see what others in the market are thinking and doing, which can only serve to benefit the entire community, from vendors to providers to end users.

 

As Acision’s Patrick Laurie, who is also and NGN/IMS Forum Board member, explained, “When you are developing applications and technology, you tend to be in your own sandbox. But when you come to an event like this, you find that your definition of the sandbox isn’t always what the rest of the world sees.”

 

By understanding what others in the industry are working on, and how they are approaching common issues, all participants benefit from sharing experiences and ideas that will help drive technology innovation and decrease overall development time. 

 

If it isn’t already clear, the value in IMS is interoperability. As Sonus Networks ’ vice president of Corporate Marketing explains, “IMS is about being able to deliver services across multiple networks and multiple domains. This event is an excellent forum for being able to exercise these capabilities in an open way, and to be able to demonstrate that these solutions are working and deployable.”

 

Indeed, the industry has, for some time, touted the goal of a truly ubiquitous communications environment — to enable access from any device, which, due to even the smallest variances in technologies between vendors, requires interoperability work.

 

Thanks in no small part to the IMS/NGN Forum, IMS has evolved significantly from its earliest days, and continues to do so. By and large, participants in PlugFest 6 agree that, while 2009 will not bring widespread implementation of true IMS-based services, 2010 may well be a significant year for IMS.

 

“Operators understand that IMS is a way to deliver services and to control the necessary layers and reuse architecture for multiple services,” explained Starent Networks’ senior director of Product Management. “It’s all really being driven by the applications, and when you move into 4G, operators will have to have IMS. So, as 4G comes to reality, it will drive IMS adoption more.”

 

“It won’t happen this year, but in the foreseeable future, it is eminent,” he concluded.

 

Now, exactly two years after the first IMS PlugFest, the hope is that IMS, which has been the subject of so many hype vs. reality discussions, will now finally be able to turn that hype into practice. With a year to work on continued interoperability, the IMS/NGN Forum and its members are confident they will, in fact, finally turn their vision into reality.